And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever — the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
(John 14:16-18 NKJ)

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Here in Wichita the Roman Catholic Diocese operates a charity named The Lord’s Diner . Information about this “soup kitchen” is available at their web site.

The diner has operated for a number of years, serving evening meals 365 days per year, with the numbers ranging from 400-500 per day. The diner has become an object of controversy by expressing a desire to establish a second location with the desire of providing more meals to more of the city’s needy. Some folk in the second area have objected to this, as is reported in the Wichita Eagle’s Tuesday edition entitled, “City sets public hearing on controversial Lord's Diner location for Nov. 17”.

The building is owned by the city. It is currently vacant, but some would like to see the building used for other purposes, including a job training center.

One very disturbing comment is reported to have been put forth by Kevin Myles, president of the Wichita chapter of the NAACP. The Eagle reports that he “said he wants the city to consider an alternative where the Diner delivers its prepared meals to churches throughout the central northeast neighborhood.”

This is a disturbing notion. Why? This is a privately operated charitable soup kitchen. That the NAACP should suggest that the city government should dictate to a private organization how it may conduct its charitable work is disturbing, even frightening. Perhaps Mr. Myles will realize this when given time to think about his stated desire. Surely he would not consider this to be appropriate if someone were to suggest that the city government dictate to the NAACP how it may operate and conduct its work. But when tyranny rules over one group, it can rule over all.

Another disturbing comment is reported to have been stated by Council member Lavonta Williams. The Eagle reports: “She proposed a public hearing be set for Nov. 17, instead of Nov. 3, as city staff proposed. And she indicated that she supports the Diner but questions the location when the city is trying to improve the area and has discussed a job training center at the building. "You can give a person a fish and they'll eat for a day but if you teach them to fish they'll eat for a lifetime," she said.

Why are these comments disturbing? First, it is delusional to imagine that a job training center will help people who are hungry now. It is furthermore delusional to imagine that spending money on a job training center will help the jobless when the availability of jobs continues to decline. The Lord’s Diner is offering to pay the city to use the building, and further to provide meals to people who are hungry.

Council member Williams quotes the cliche about teaching a person to fish, without taking into account the futility of such training. This cliche very accurately manifests the thoughtlessness of such propositions. Teaching a person to fish, does not make fishing possible where it is illegal to fish without purchasing a licence. If the people had money for a fishing licence, they could buy quite a few fish. Moreover there are legal restrictions placed upon where fishing may occur and how many fish may be caught and kept.

The point is that a job training center does a hungry person no immediate good, especially when this training center is being proposed as an alternative to a group who is offering free food now. Perhaps Councilwoman Williams has never been hungry. It is unlikely that anyone who knows the pain of hunger, the hunger that comes from poverty and helplessness, would ever imagine such a suggestion to be worthy of consideration or even mention. Certainly a job training center is a good idea for assisting people to prepare for the future, but not as a substitute for a group who is working to provide for the immediate needs of people who could starve or become weakened before any training would benefit them.

The area of town where The Lord’s Diner wants to operate the second soup kitchen is an area where many hungry people currently reside and traverse. Those who have expressed concern over having homeless people and other needy people congregating to be fed would do well to consider that desperately hungry people are far more likely to get into trouble than those who are congregating with the hope of receiving a meal to fill their bellies. People with the promise of receiving a meal may mill about, but those who have no such promise often will look with envy upon those who have something.

How much better it would be if the kind folk who operate and volunteer to serve in The Lord’s Diner were left in peace to carry on with their acts of compassion without interference from others.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

This is a truly comforting passage from God’s Holy Scripture. These words, recorded by the Apostle Paul, speak to our hearts in times of trouble, in times of deepest distress, when we imagine that the darkness that fills this world and the days of this evil age is too great to endure.

This particular verse is magnified by the words that follow:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (Romans 8:28-34)

When examined in the greater context of the entire epistle, verse 28 becomes so much greater than the darkness of our times that the light of God’s grace fills us with hope that cannot be extinguished. For that light and that hope are from everlasting, even from eternity.

Following the word order our passage is translated:

“Moreover, we know that to those loving God all things He works together (synergizes) into good according to the setting forth called being.”

Synergei, which means synergize or work together, is third person and singular. This is why we know what we know about these things, because they do not work together for our good on their own, but rather, God synergizes them into good for us. God is at work in the midst of absolutely everything that is happening and He synergizes all things with His good and gracious will for us so that they must turn out for good to us.

This, St. Paul informs us, is the synergy that God works “according to the setting forth called being.” This is an ancient way of speaking, going back to the very first recorded Scriptures from Moses. (Exodus 29:23; 40:4 & 23; Leviticus 24:8) This “setting forth” is the exact same term used for the shewbread that the Lord set forth to be continually before Him in the Sanctuary. This shewbread is the body of the Lord Jesus, who stands in the presence of God interceding for us. This is the body of Christ that is given in and with the shewbread that is broken and distributed in the Sacrament of the Altar in the divine service each Lord’s Day. This is what makes us the “according to the setting forth called being.” This is what makes us truly to be the body of Christ, gathered in His name. According to the body of Christ in the Sacrament, we are the called being.

Truly this is terribly wonderful! For not one thing of this depends upon what we do. Rather, everything that we do as the body of Christ, the “called being”, depends upon the “according to the setting forth,” the shewbread that is on the altar for the priests of the New Testament to partake. Yes, as St. Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, we are the “royal priesthood” for whom the shewbread is reserved. Thus we are maintained in the Holy Communion of God to partake of all good things in communion with Him. As such we have been generated through Baptism as “those loving God.”

It is through Baptism that we are “conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” It is through the blessed Sacrament of the Altar that we are maintained in His image as His brethren.

Because these Sacraments are God’s synergism and not ours, because He is the one who joins the natural elements to the power of His command and promise, they accomplish the good that He has purposed for us. And since all things are synergized by God according to this setting forth of the body of Christ for us, all things are worked together into good for us. God works all these things together to call us to repent of our own efforts and our own goodness so that we trust Him to be our God and Savior and rely upon Him for all that we need both of body and soul. As long as we continue in the synergism that God works for us, everything is good.

This is why St. Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 11:29 “For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” For it is not possible to receive God’s holy synergism except in accord with His setting forth in the body of Christ gathered as the “called being.” If we do not discern the body of Christ, how can we be gathered as the body of Christ? If we are not gathered as the body of Christ, how can we partake of the good things that are offered only in His body? But, rightly discerning the body of Christ, we continue in the communion of the saints, the called being, those loving God. Then we truly know that God is synergizing all things into good for us. Then we abide in the complete and absolute confidence of His grace, mercy, and peace, even when everything around us appears to be darkness and dread.

Here Dr. Vincent Bellonzi speaks to the issue of excitotoxins that are added to processed foods and the effects that they produce in the human body, especially in neurotransmitter function. Some of the neurological symptoms/diseases that he addresses include autism, depression, obstruction of clear thinking, emotion instability, irrational behavior, migraines, and attention deficit disorder. Diabetes and obesity are also included in this presentation.

For information regarding the many ways that the chemical additives are listed (disguised) as ingredients on labels, check out the information provided at truthinlabeling.org. This site also has information regarding MedImmune’s H1N1 vaccine.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:5-11)

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:28-39)

We Are Above Conquerors!

The victory is not in the temporal things but over and beyond the temporal. For the temporal does not endure, but fades. The everlasting, THE EVERLASTING, God Himself, is our victory.

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."

Consider what this means. We are MORE than conquerors. We are above-conquerors! We are those for whom the victory has been won. We are the kings for whom the servant-warrior went forth and won the everlasting battle. We don't have to fight. We are more than conquerors. We are the ones for whom the battle has been fought and we now live in the victory that has been won.

And so, like dear Stephen, even as the stones strike us and beat us down in the flesh, we look to the right hand of God and see the place that the man, Jesus, holds for us. We see that our place has already been won for us, purchased and held by the presence of Jesus at the right hand of God. Man now rules the universe in the union of the God/Man Jesus. The Lord Jesus has ruled as God from eternity, but with His ascension in the flesh to the right hand of power, He also rules as Man, our brother in the flesh, the first fruit of the resurrection, in whom we have our share in the resurrection and the kingdom of glory.

This is what empowers us to live in absolute confidence. For Christ not only won the victory over sin for us by His suffering and death on the cross, but He rose from the dead, with His body, into which He incorporates us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. He rose to verify our new life in Him as the Son of Man risen from the dead, joined with the Son of God everlastingly as one in the flesh. There is no power that can separate or dissolve this union. And thus, when we are conjoined with Christ through Baptism, as long as we do not surrender the faith that He has poured out to us, there is no power that can separate us from the love of God, for as St. Paul concludes, the love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have been conjoined. As long as we do not choose to separate ourselves from Christ, no power in heaven or on earth can or will separate us from God's love. The victory is in Christ Jesus, who rules on our behalf at the right hand of power. Truly, we are more than conquerors through the one having loved us.

About Me

I am an Evangelical Lutheran pastor who earns his living as an arborist. I own my own small tree company, All Tree, and operate in Wichita, KS. I list Arborist before Pastor under Occupation because I earn my living as an arborist but my vocation is that of Pastor. I am an arborist because I take care of trees, but I am a pastor because proclaiming the Gospel of Christ crucified is my life. I can choose to stop trimming trees, but to stop proclaiming the Gospel would be to stop breathing.
Web sites for business and congregation are:
[All Tree];
[Bride of Christ ELC]